Slim Pickens

Slim Pickens
Slim Pickens in 1972
Born	Louis Burton Lindley Jr. (1919-06-29)June 29, 1919 Kingsburg, California, U.S.
Died	December 8, 1983(1983-12-08) (aged 64) Modesto, California, U.S.
Years active	1946–1983
Spouse(s)	Margaret (née Harmon) Lindley (1950–1983 (his death))[1]
Children	3

Louis Burton Lindley Jr. (June 29, 1919 – December 8, 1983), better known by his stage name Slim Pickens, was an American actor and rodeo performer.^[2] Starting off in the rodeo, Pickens transitioned to acting and appeared in several dozen movies and TV shows. For much of his career Pickens played mainly cowboy roles;^[2] he is perhaps best remembered today for his comic roles in Dr. Strangelove, Blazing Saddles and 1941, and his villainous turn in One-Eyed Jacks.

Early life and rodeo work[]

Louis Burton Lindley Jr. was born in Kingsburg, California,^[3] the son of Sally Mosher (née Turk) and Louis Bert Lindley Sr., a Texas-born dairy farmer. Young Lindley was an excellent horse rider from an early age. Known as "Burt" to his family and friends, he grew bored with dairy farming and began to make a few dollars by riding broncos and roping steers in his early teens. His father found out and forbade this activity, but Lindley took no notice, went to compete in a rodeo, and was told by the doubtful rodeo manager that there would be "slim pickin's" (i.e. little chance of any prize money) for him.

To prevent his father from discovering that he had competed, he entered his name as Slim Pickens, and won $400 that afternoon. Lindley graduated from Hanford High School, Hanford, California, and was a member of the Future Farmers of America. He joined the rodeo, billed as Slim Pickens, and eventually became a well-known rodeo clown.

During World War II, he enlisted in the United States Army Air Forces. Reportedly when the recruiter asked him his profession, he responded "Rodeo". This was misread on a form as "radio", and he spent his entire enlistment at a radio station in the American Midwest.^[4]

Film career[]

After nearly 20 years' rodeo work, Pickens's wide eyes, moon face, strong physical presence, and distinctive country drawl gained him a role in the Western Rocky Mountain (1950), which starred Errol Flynn. He appeared in many more Westerns, playing both villains and comic sidekicks to actors such as Rex Allen.

Hollywood made good use of Pickens' rodeo background. He did not need a stand-in for horseback scenes, and he was able to gallop his own Appaloosa horses across the desert, or drive a stagecoach pulled by a six-horse team. In a large number of films and TV shows, he wore his own hats and boots, and rode his own horses and mules.^{[citation needed]}

Pickens appeared in dozens of further films, including Old Oklahoma Plains (1952), Down Laredo Way (1953), Tonka (1959), One-Eyed Jacks (1961, with Marlon Brando), Dr. Strangelove (1964), Major Dundee (1965, with Charlton Heston), the remake of Stagecoach (1966; Pickens played the driver, portrayed in the 1939 film by Andy Devine), An Eye for an Eye (1966), Never a Dull Moment (1968), The Cowboys (1972, with John Wayne), The Getaway (1972, with Steve McQueen), Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973), Ginger in the Morning (1974, with Fred Ward), Blazing Saddles (1974), Poor Pretty Eddie, Rancho Deluxe (both 1975), Beyond the Poseidon Adventure (1979, with Michael Caine and Karl Malden), and Tom Horn (1980, also with McQueen). He had a small but memorable role in Steven Spielberg's 1941 (1979) in scenes with Toshiro Mifune and Christopher Lee; during one scene, he enumerates the objects on his person, similarly to the way he does in the "Survival Kit Contents Check" scene in Dr. Strangelove. In 1978, Pickens lent his voice to theme park Silver Dollar City as a character named Rube Dugan, for a ride called "Rube Dugan's Diving Bell". The diving bell was a simulation ride that took passengers on a journey to the bottom of Lake Silver and back. The ride was in operation from 1978 to 1984. He also played werewolf sheriff Sam Newfield in The Howling (1981).

In 1960, he appeared with William Bendix and Doug McClure in the NBC Western series Overland Trail in the episode "Sour Annie", with fellow guest stars Mercedes McCambridge and Andrew Prine. Pickens appeared five times in NBC's Outlaws (1960–62) Western series as the character Slim. The program, starring Barton MacLane, was the story of a U.S. marshal in Oklahoma Territory and the outlaws he pursued. In 1967, Pickens had a recurring role as the scout California Joe Milner in the ABC military Western Custer, which starred Wayne Maunder in the title role.

In 1975, Pickens was in another Western, playing the evil, limping bank robber in Walt Disney's The Apple Dumpling Gang; that same year, the exploitation cult classic Poor Pretty Eddie was released, with Pickens portraying twisted Sheriff Orville. He provided the voice of B.O.B. in the 1979 Disney science-fiction thriller The Black Hole. His last film was his least notable, Pink Motel (1982, with Phyllis Diller).

Dr. Strangelove[]

Pickens played B-52 pilot Major T. J. "King" Kong^[5] in 1964's Dr. Strangelove. Stanley Kubrick cast Pickens after Peter Sellers, who played three other roles in the film, sprained his ankle and was unable to perform in the role due to having to work in the cramped cockpit set. Pickens was chosen because his accent and comic sense were perfect for the role of Kong, a cartoonishly patriotic and gung-ho B-52 commander. He was not given the script for the entire film, but only those portions in which he played a part. Three memorable scenes featuring Pickens were:

Slim Pickens as Major "King" Kong riding a nuclear bomb to oblivion in Dr. Strangelove

• A monologue meant to steel the crew for their duty after he receives the definitive inflight order to bomb a strategic target in the USSR.
• Reading aloud to his crew the contents of their survival kits (possibly the first mention of condoms in a Hollywood film). After listing the contents usable for barter with Russian women (prophylactics, nylons, lipstick, etc.), as well as a .45 automatic pistol, Major Kong said, "Shoot, a fella could have a pretty good time in Big D [Dallas] with all this stuff." This line had to be looped (the reference to Dallas changed to "weekend in Vegas") after the scheduled November 22, 1963 screening for critics was canceled due to President John F. Kennedy's assassination.^[5]
• Best known of all, and an enduring historical film image of the American-Soviet Cold War era, Pickens riding a dropped H-bomb to a certain death, whooping and waving his cowboy hat (in the manner of a rodeo performer bronc riding or bull riding), not knowing its detonation will trigger a Soviet doomsday device.

Pickens credited Dr. Strangelove as a turning point in his career. Previously he had been "Hey you" on sets, and afterward he was addressed as "Mr. Pickens". He once said, "After Dr. Strangelove, the roles, the dressing rooms, and the checks all started gettin' bigger." Pickens said he was amazed at the difference a single movie could make.^{[citation needed]} However, he also said that working with Stanley Kubrick proved too difficult due to Kubrick's perfectionist style of directing with multiple takes for nearly every shot, especially with the climactic H-bomb riding scene, which was done in just over 100 takes. In the late 1970s, Pickens was offered the part of Dick Hallorann in Kubrick's adaptation of Stephen King's The Shining, but Pickens stipulated that he would appear in the film only if Kubrick was required to shoot Pickens' scenes in fewer than 100 takes.^[6] Instead, Pickens' agent showed the script to Don Schwartz, the agent of Scatman Crothers, and Crothers accepted the role.^[7]

Voice work and recordings[]

Pickens lent his voice to the 1975 studio recording of Bobby Bridger's collection of Western ballads A Ballad of the West, in which he narrated part 1, "Seekers of the Fleece", the story of Jim Bridger and the mountain man fur-trade era. In 1977, he released the self-titled country album, Slim Pickens, on Blue Canyon Records. The LP contained twelve selections (including Kinky Friedman's "Carryin' the Torch", which was issued as a single) and two songs written by Pickens himself. The record jacket featured a photo of the actor in his signature role in Dr. Strangelove, sitting in the cockpit.^[8] Pickens also recorded a one-off single, "Christmas in November" (a rather depressing number about a child who won't live to celebrate Christmas on time), on the Midsong label in 1980.

Television[]

Pickens appeared in numerous television guest shots, including a 1954 episode in which he played the Sundance Kid to Joe Sawyer's Butch Cassidy, as well as four episodes of the syndicated Western series Annie Oakley (1956, with Gail Davis and Brad Johnson), and three episodes of NBC's The Wide Country (1962), a rodeo series starring Earl Holliman and Andrew Prine. In 1961, he had a recurring role as Johnson in the 17-episode NBC series The Americans, the story of how the American Civil War divided families. Thereafter, he was cast in a first-season episode of NBC's espionage series The Man from U.N.C.L.E..

He appeared in episodes of Mannix, Cheyenne, Sugarfoot, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Lone Ranger, Frontier Doctor, Gunsmoke, Route 66, The Tall Man, Maverick (in several episodes playing different characters), The Westerner, Riverboat, The Fugitive, The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters, The Legend of Jesse James, Alias Smith and Jones, Daniel Boone, The Virginian, That Girl,^[9] Baretta, Vega$, How the West Was Won, Cimarron Strip, The Love Boat, and Kung Fu.

Pickens was cast in recurring roles in The Legend of Custer, Bonanza, Hee Haw (where he was a semiregular from 1981 until his death), B. J. and the Bear with Greg Evigan, and Filthy Rich. He played Wild Jack Monroe, the owner of station WJM, in CBS's The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and also guest-starred as Zeke in the 1963 episode "Higgins and the Hillbilly" of the ABC sitcom Our Man Higgins, which starred Stanley Holloway as a British butler for a suburban American family. Pickens portrayed Grandpa Shoenfield in a two-part 1980 episode of ABC's The Love Boat.

In an episode of CBS's Hawaii Five-O he portrayed the patriarch of a family of serial killers.

Pickens emceed NBC's short-lived country music variety series The Nashville Palace in 1981.

Awards[]

In 1982, Pickens was inducted into the Western Performers Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City.^[10]

In 1986, Pickens was honored by the during his posthumous induction into the Rodeo Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum.^[11]

In 2005, Pickens was posthumously inducted into the ProRodeo Hall of Fame in Colorado Springs for his work as a rodeo clown.^[12]

In 2006, Pickens was inducted into the Pendleton Round-Up and Happy Canyon Hall of Fame.^[13]

In 2020, Pickens was inducted into the Ellensburg Rodeo Hall of Fame in Washington.^[14]

Personal life[]

In his last years, Pickens lived with his wife in Columbia, California. He died on December 8, 1983, after surgery for a brain tumor. He was survived by his wife and children, Thomas Michael Lindley and Margaret Louise Wittman (née Lindley), as well as his step-daughter, Daryle Ann Giardino (née Wofford). His funeral was held at Presbyterian Church of the Forty Niners in Columbia, California, where he was a member.^[3] His remains were scattered over his favorite trail areas.^[3] His wife died in 2011.^[15]

His brother Samuel (1921–2001) was also an actor with the stage name Easy Pickens.

Filmography[]

Television[]

See also[]

• List of notable brain tumor patients

References[]

External links[]

• Slim Pickens at IMDb
• Slim Pickens at the TCM Movie Database
• Slim Pickens at Find a Grave
• The Colt Revolver in the American West – Slim Pickens' Single Action Army